Forty years after the events of June 1984, details continue to come into clearer focus. As a community, the Sikhs broadly understand what happened in those horrific days. What is less clear to many Sikhs is why these events actually occurred. In this article, I will look at the reasons for the attack the Indian state carried out on the Harimandar Sahib Complex in June of 1984 and the pogroms against Sikhs in November of the same year. As a community, we have focused on the violence, trauma, and atrocities of 1984. What we have spent less time contemplating is the background to the events as well as the ideological and epistemological violence that the government inflicted on Sikhs. It is this violence, the violence against the ideals and principles of Sikhi, that lies at the heart of the reasons why 1984 occurred. Understanding the logic of the state will allow us as a community to understand the events of 1984 more fully and place them in their proper historical context. 

To understand Indira Gandhi’s motivations in June of 1984, we must look back at her time as Prime Minister of India. Like most politicians and people in positions of power, Indira’s primary desire was to stay in power to maintain her iron grip. Indira Gandhi was groomed to be the leader of the Indian National Congress party (Congress) and Prime Minister (PM) of India¹. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was India’s first PM. After his death, it was a foregone conclusion that his daughter would take his place². In both the global North and South, the children of democratically elected leaders often follow their parents into positions of power. This seems to hold especially true in South Asia, where in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, the children of prominent Prime Ministers have themselves become Prime Ministers³. 

Indira Gandhi, therefore, thought of the prime ministership of India as something that was naturally hers, something that she was destined for and that could not be taken away. This entitlement to the position—and the power that accompanies it, can be seen most clearly in the events of the Emergency of 1975. On 24 June 1975, the Supreme Court of India found Gandhi guilty of election fraud. She was directed to resign her position and give herself up for arrest. Instead, she declared a state of national emergency and suspended all civil liberties⁴. It was clear from her actions that staying in power was of paramount importance to her, more important than the norms and rules governing the state. So, the events of June 1984 must first be understood in terms of Gandhi's intense desire to stay in power, regardless of the cost. 

However, to lay blame just at Indira’s feet would be a mistake. Operation Blue Star⁵ and the Battle of Amritsar⁶ need to be understood in the context of the Indian government’s policies against Sikhs since before the inception of the government of India. Pre-1947, prominent leaders like Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru made promises to the Sikhs to ensure Sikh support for the Congress Party during the Indian Independence struggle⁷. Commitments to constitutional accommodations were made to ensure the continued survival of minority groups. These included assurances that the culture and language of minority groups were safeguarded and promoted. Very soon after Independence, Sikhs began to ask for the fulfillment of these promises. A pattern quickly emerged that whenever Sikhs asked for their rights, they would be labeled as separatists and communalists. This can clearly be seen in the decades-long struggle for a Panjabi-speaking state. What should have been a simple process of creating a linguistically defined state became, over time, an existential threat to the Indian state. 

The change in rhetoric by India’s leadership before and after 1947 was quite dramatic. It is obvious now, with the clarity of hindsight, that Congress leaders said whatever they thought necessary before 1947 to get Sikhs on board. Post-1947, however, Sikhs' demands for their rights directly contradicted PM Nehru’s vision for India.

Though India is known for its religious, cultural, and linguistic diversity, Nehru very much wanted a centralized state, with power concentrated in the executive branch⁸. This Nehruian vision meant that Sikh demands, no matter how reasonable, would be seen as a threat to the very fabric of the Indian state. It is vital to note that Sikh demands in the decades after 1947 were never separatist but instead were simply seeking rights and protections within the framework of the Indian state. This meant asking for language protection, equivalent status for Sikh religious centers as was given to Hindu holy sites, and other seemingly non-controversial demands. Sikhs viewed themselves as part of the Indian state and thus made demands of their government as any group of citizens had the right to. 

If one were to study Sikh demands of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, it becomes clear that they were not communal in any way and that there was no hint of separatism in mainstream Sikh demands of the time. These facts are in direct contradiction to the insidious narrative that is repeated to this day, equating the demand for Sikh rights with separatism⁹ and communalism¹⁰.

The major Sikh demand from the 1950s and 60s was for the state of Panjab to be reorganized on linguistic lines as was done for the rest of India, in order to preserve and promote the Panjabi language. The demand for Panjabi Suba was hardly communalist. In fact, it was a demand that Panjabi language rights be respected regardless of religion so that Hindu and Sikh Panjabis could have their culture and language preserved¹¹. This demand also did not promote the call for a separate Sikh homeland in any way.

How was the request for a Panjabi-speaking state, Panjabi Suba, met by the central government? With violence, oppression, propaganda, and repression. Over 60,000 Sikhs would go to prison for Panjabi Suba to be granted. During the long campaign for Panjabi Suba, the Harimandar Sahib Complex was stormed by the Panjab Police in 1955¹². Sikhs were routinely beaten by the police, and Sikhs as young as 12 years old were killed¹³. However, the police and court system were not the only part of the Indian state apparatus weaponized against Sikhs during this time. In a precursor to the late 1970s, 80s, and 90s, the Indian media and the Hindu Panjabi community were also mobilized against the Sikh community. 

From the very start of post-independence India, the Indian media engaged in fear-mongering when it came to Sikh demands and would routinely misrepresent what mainstream Sikh groups were asking for¹⁴. Any demand for minority rights protection and linguistic rights was immediately labeled as separatist. In addition, extremist voices in the Hindu Panjabi community were emboldened to spread violent rhetoric against Sikhs. 

The Hindu Panjabi community, especially the Hindu Panjabi press, would routinely engage in violent propaganda against Sikhs and Sikh demands¹⁵. Hindu Panjabis were encouraged by the central government to abandon their language and culture and to see any demand for a linguistic state as an existential threat to the Hindu community¹⁶. It led to the absurdity of the linguistic census of 1961 when Hindu Panjabis routinely claimed that they spoke Hindi instead of Panjabi but stated this ‘fact’ in Panjabi¹⁷. This was encouraged by the central government and the Hindu press.

This is the background of Indira Gandhi’s relationship with the Sikhs. Even before she came to power, there was a history of persecution and demonization of Sikhs by the central government of her father’s making. What then occurred under her was a rapid escalation of these long-established patterns.

Indira’s electoral defeat after the Emergency was an infuriating event for her. In her mind, what was rightfully hers—the office of Prime Minister—had been unfairly taken from her. Upon returning to power in 1980, she worked to ensure that her grip was absolute and that she would never again lose her coveted position¹⁸. 

What is remarkable is just how patriotic Sikhs were before 1984. For example, when the war with Pakistan broke out, the leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal, Sant Fateh Singh, put the campaign for Panjabi Suba on hold and actively went out and rallied Sikhs to support the war effort¹⁹. Yet, in the 1980s, a community that had sacrificed so much for India began to be routinely accused of being funded and supported by Pakistan as a means to undermine the Indian state. The Dharam Yudh Morcha and its leadership were routinely accused of working with Pakistan²⁰ and Hindu groups would carry out marches across Panjab with slogans like, “Kach, Kara, Kirpan! Inko Bhejo Pakistan!”²¹. 

In 1973, Sikhs developed the Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR). The ASR became the primary focus of Sikh political action in the early 1980s and the focus of the Dharam Yudh Morcha. With the rhetoric still being used to malign Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, one would think that the ASR was some sort of radical document that made revolutionary demands. A glance at the actual demands in the resolution demonstrates how wrong that assumption is and further lays bare the propaganda of the Indian state and media²². 

The ASR was primarily a list of linguistic and socio-economic demands. These demands did not just apply to Panjab and the Sikhs but were meant for all of India as a safeguard for all minorities and linguistic groups²³. It was essentially moving India to become a federal state from a central one. In addition, the ASR demanded economic rights for the impoverished, such as small-scale farmers and those labeled as low caste²⁴. There was no hint in the ASR of a demand for a separate Sikh state. The document and its demands are completely within the framework of the Indian state. Yet by 1982, the ASR had become labeled as a separatist document that demanded a Sikh state, was made in conjunction with Pakistan, and was seeking to break up India²⁵. 

The post-1978 rise of turmoil in Panjab was not due to Sikh activism but rather a concerted effort by the central government to create an atmosphere in which Sikhs could be demonized as the ‘other.’ Maligning Sikhs was just one of the reasons for 1984. This campaign of disinformation explained the rhetoric being spewed against Sikhs in the early 1980s as well as the increasing violence against Sikhs in those years, with over two hundred young Sikh men dying in police encounters before 1984 and many documented cases of Sikh women being sexually assaulted by the police²⁶. 

But demonizing Sikhs does not fully explain the brutality and severity of the army action in June of 1984, nor the well-organized genocidal pogroms that occurred in November of the same year. Indira Gandhi had a larger goal.

It wasn’t just that Sikhs made an easy target for government misinformation. It was that, time and time again, Sikhs had demonstrated that they would not be cowed or bullied into stepping back from the political arena. In a country that wanted unity of purpose and culture, Sikhs were a thorn, constantly pushing back against the effort of the state to erase differences. Nehru had assumed that once Independence had been achieved, Sikhs would stop their political action and fall in line²⁷. While that did happen at first, once it became clear that the promises made before Independence were not going to be respected, Sikhs again began to organize and protest the actions of the state, much as they had against the British²⁸. 

Instead of conciliation and negotiation, the government’s tactic throughout the 1950s and 60s was to push back as hard as possible against any Sikh demands, regardless of how reasonable or logical they were. However, fundamentally misunderstanding the Sikh psyche meant that the government did not realize that this policy would only embolden Sikhs to organize more.

This political activism did not stop with the (flawed) attainment of Panjabi Suba²⁹. Instead, Sikhs kept protesting and organizing. Nowhere was this more apparent than during the Emergency, when Sikhs, en masse, protested against Indira’s dictatorial policies in their Save Democracy Morcha³⁰. Despite their tiny population of less than 2%, over 29% of those arrested during the Emergency were Sikhs³¹. There is little doubt that this pushback from the Sikh community against Indira’s Emergency enraged her. 

The Indian government’s actions in 1984 were genocidal³². The killing of thousands of Sikhs, the destruction of the Sikh Reference Library, and the attack on Gurduaras all fit the definition of genocide. But genocide does not always mean that a government is trying to erase a people completely. Yes, that is what occurred during the holocaust, when the German Nazi regime tried to exterminate all of Europe’s Jewish and Roma population. But not every genocide is so thorough in its mandate. 

The goal of the Indian state was much more insidious. Since Independence, Sikhs have hindered India’s nation-building campaign. The brutality of 1984, the fact that the Harimandar Sahib Complex was attacked and the Akal Takht Sahib was destroyed, the Sikh Reference Library burnt, and over 100 other Gurduaras attacked, was not meant to wipe out Sikhs, but instead was meant as a way to wipe out political activism amongst the Sikhs. To break the spirit of the Sikh people so that they would never again raise their voices against the Indian state. 

Essentially, what the government planned was the disempowerment of Sikhs in the political arena. It was to silence Sikhs so they would be pliable and wouldn’t be politically active in the future. It was the destruction of political Sikhi that the government sought. Of course, within the framework of Miri Piri³³, political Sikhi is, simply, Sikhi and political action and activism can not be separated from what it means to be a Sikh³⁴. So, the campaign to erase political activism in Sikhs led to a larger campaign of reframing Sikhi as a branch of Hinduism and erasing its unique and distinctive identity³⁵. This is simply the next chapter in the Indian government’s long war to undermine Sikhi and one we see actively carried out today by India’s Hindutva regime.³⁶

The Sikh Raj that Guru Nanak Sahib began was one in which the Sikh people were fully sovereign and free by the nature of their relationship with Akal Purakh, the Timeless Being. Guru Granth Sahib tells us, in Bhai Balvand and Bhai Satta’s Ramkali ki Var, that Guru Nanak Sahib inaugurated political sovereignty when he revealed the Sikhi³⁷. Regardless of the current political situation, whether Sikhs are free in the Sarkar-i-Khalsa (the Sikh Empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh) or living in colonial British India, the sovereignty of the Sikh Panth does not diminish. When Sikhs decided to support the Congress Party in the 1920s and 30s, they did so as a sovereign Panth³⁸. They expected to be treated as a sovereign Panth post-Independence. The Sikhs had no qualms about being a part of the Indian state as long as India recognized Sikhs with this distinction.

It is this fundamental and primal aspect of Sikh identity that the Indian government has not been able to reconcile. The Indian state has refused to recognize the Guru Khalsa Panth and thinks of Sikhs merely as citizens of the country. Sikhs have operated in India as a Panth and have demanded that they be treated as such. It is our nature as a distinct and free Panth that compels Sikhs to be politically active and to organize as a community. It is this very inherent aspect of the Sikhs’ nature that the Indian state has tried to suppress. 

For the government of India, 1984 was meant to put Sikhs in their place once and for all. It was an action meant to erase our political activism. However, the fundamental nature of Sikhi cannot be suppressed. So, while for India, 1984 was meant to be an end, for Sikhs, it became another chapter of struggle and resilience against state oppression, another ghallughara³⁹ to overcome, another act of resistance in the history of the Panth.

Footnotes

¹    Indira Gandhi, My Truth. New York, 1982.

²    B.R. Nanda, The Nehrus: Motilal and Jawaharlal. Oxford, 2007.

³    Prime Minister Benazair Bhutto of Pakistan was the daughter of Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is the daughter of Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh.

⁴     Christophe Jaffrelot & Pratinav Anil, India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975 -1977. New York, 2021.

⁵     Operation Blue Star is the Indian government’s name for the army action of June 1984 when Harimandar Sahib Complex and 100 other Gurduraras were attacked in Panjab.

⁶     Battle of Amritsar is the Sikh contextualized term for the attack on the Harimandar Sahib Complex in June of 1984. 

⁷     Mewa Singh, Religion and History of the Sikh (1469-2010). New Delhi, 2011.

⁸     Shashi Tharoor, Nehru: The Invention of India. New York, 2003.

⁹     To be a communalist in the Indian context is to create divisions between religious/cultural groups and to give rise to communal conflict.

¹⁰    To be a separatist in the Indian context is to challenge the territorial integrity of the Indian state.

¹¹     Amarjit Singh Narang, Region, Religion and Politics : 100 Years of Shiromani Akali Dal. Abingdon, Oxon, 2022

¹²     Gurmit Singh, A History of Sikh Struggles, Volume 1 (1946-1966). New Delhi, 1989.

¹³     Gurmit Singh, A History of Sikh Struggles, Volume 1 (1946-1966). New Delhi, 1989.

¹⁴     Gurtej Singh, Chakravyuh: Web of Indian Secularism. Chandigarh, 2000.

¹⁵     Gurtej Singh, Chakravyuh: Web of Indian Secularism. Chandigarh, 2000.

¹⁶     Sangat Singh, The Sikhs in History. New Delhi, 2002.

¹⁷     Mewa Singh, Religion and History of the Sikh (1469-2010). New Delhi, 2011.

¹⁸     Vijah Sanghvi, The Congress, Indira to Sonia Gandhi. New Delhi, 2006.

¹⁹     Gurmit Singh, A History of Sikh Struggles, Volume 1 (1946-1966). New Delhi, 1989.

²⁰     Patwant Singh and Harji Malik, Punjab: The Fatal Miscalculation. New Delhi, 1985.

²¹     Kachera, Kara and Kirpan are Sikh articles of faith. Inko Bhejo Pakistan means, send these to Pakistan.

²²     Kushwant Singh, The Anandpur Sahib Resolution and Other Akali Demands. Oxford, 2013.

²³     Amarinder Singh, Anandpur Sahib Resolution, The Sikh Encyclopedia (ed. Harbans Singh). Patiala, 1995.

²⁴     Amarinder Singh, Anandpur Sahib Resolution, The Sikh Encyclopedia (ed. Harbans Singh). Patiala, 1995.

²⁵     Patwant Singh and Harji Malik, Punjab: The Fatal Miscalculation. New Delhi, 1985.

²⁶     Ram Narayan Kumar, Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab. Kathmandu, 2003.

²⁷     Gurtej Singh, Chakravyuh: Web of Indian Secularism. Chandigarh, 2000.

²⁸     Gurmit Singh, Failure of Akali Leadership. Punjab, 1981.

²⁹     There were serious issues with Panjabi Suba, such as Panjabi speaking areas being left out of Panjab, the status of Chandigarh and riparian rights. 

³⁰     Gurmit Singh, A History of Sikh Struggles, Volume 2. New Delhi, 1991.

³¹     Gurmit Singh, A History of Sikh Struggles, Volume 2. New Delhi, 1991.

³²     In 2018, the Delhi High Court ruled that the events of 1984 were in fact genocide.

³³     Miri Piri, is the Sikh term denoting the sovereignty of the Guru and the Sikh people in both temporal and spiritual realms, or essentially, an all encompassing sovereignty in all spaces. 

³⁴     Jagjit Singh, Percussions of History: The Sikh Revolution & in the Caravan of Revolutions. Chandigarh, 2006.

³⁵     Gurharpal Singh and Giorgio Shani, Sikh Nationalism: From a Dominant Minority to an Ethno-Religious Diaspora. Cambridge, 2022.

³⁶     For example, the Indian government frames Guru Gobind Singh Sahib, and sikh leaders like Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, as Indian patriots, whose real goal was to protect Hindu India from Muslim “conquerers”. 

³⁷     Sikh Research Institute, The Guru Granth Sahib Project.

³⁸     Panth, literally meaning path, is the Sikh term for the Sikh people as a whole. Guru Gobind Singh Sahib granted the position of Guru to the Sikh Panth, and it is now referred to as the Guru Khalsa Panth.

³⁹     Ghallughara is a Sikh term first used in the 18th century to describe large-scale calamitous massacres and battles in which a large number of Sikhs were killed. Those who die in a ghallughara thus include not only those who are non-combatants and are killed or executed by opposing forces (usually the state) but also those who fight back against these forces. Therefore, while terms like massacre or genocide capture some semblance of what is meant by ghallughara, they do not capture the entire connotation of the term. While the term historically was used for a campaign of violence against Sikhs in 1746 (termed the Chotta, or Lesser Ghallughara) and a battle/massacre in 1762 (termed the Vadda, or Greater Ghallughara), in which half the population of the Sikh Panth was killed in one day, the term has become the accepted term to refer to the events of both June and November 1984. These are sometimes referred to as the Tija (or third) Ghallughara or Charasi da Ghallughara (1984 Ghallughara). Smaller scale massacres of Sikhs, like the 1921 Nankana Sahib Massacre or the 1978 Amritsar Massacre, are referred to as a Saka. Ghallughara is reserved for an event of more epic proportions in which a large number of Sikhs are killed. The 1984 Ghallughara thus refers to the non-combatant pilgrims who had come to Harimandar Sahib Complex to celebrate Guru Arjan Sahib’s Shahidipurb, the activists who were there as part of the Dharam Yudh Morcha, and the fighters who defended the complex against the Indian army.